Tag: Dahiyah Doctrine

With a Shield or Upon It – Impressions from the Spartan State

With a Shield or Upon It
When Spartan men went to war, their wives (or another women of some significance) would customarily present them with their shield and say: "With this, or upon this", meaning that true Spartans could only return to Sparta either victorious (with their shield in hand) or dead (carried upon it).

Sometimes I toy with he idea of suing my government in international court. If you take a good look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you reach a firm conclusion that, inherently, conscription is in fact illegal (I skip articles 1, 2, 28, 29 and 30, as they are unavoidably violated if any of the others are):

  • Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. [Art. 3]
  • No one shall be held in slavery or servitude [Art. 4 – a conscripted soldier earns the equivalent of $0.026 an hour (the army does provide certain services at the time of service, but I’ll leave it to you to refute this as slavery)]
  • No one shall be subjected to… degrading treatment… [Art. 5]
  • (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement… within the borders of each state.
    (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own… [Art. 13 – a conscripted soldier must be at base at designated times, otherwise considered “absentee”, which is an offense punishable by prison time]

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